Citysnaps

I met Malik while wandering in the company of strangers

Meet Malik!  He’s one of the many people I engaged and photographed on the street this weekend in San Francisco while participating in Black Boots Ink’s Wandering in the Company of Strangers workshop, hosted by photographers Emilio Bañuelos, Ibarionex Perello, Elena Carrasco, and Unnikrishnan “Unni” Raveendranathan. I had a terrific time, learned a lot, and came away very charged up.

Wandering in the Company of Strangers is a workshop that travels between San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Guadalajara. It’s an opportunity for photographers at all levels to improve their people engagement and relationship building skills photographing strangers on the street, as well as learning to reveal narrative through photographs. Reciprocally, it’s also an opportunity for workshop photographers to give back to the people through exhibitions of photographs on the street giving voice to the area (and other workshop cities) in the process. Barring bad weather, our photos are going up in a couple days at a space at 24th and Valencia.

I learned new skills, was made aware of some bad habits, and overall am more confident about taking my urban photography and street portraiture to a higher level. I also met and was inspired by many very talented photographers. I’ll be writing more about the experience in subsequent posts, and including some portraits I made while in the workshop.

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Edit 1/26 AM: We’re going to be wheat-pasting our photo-posters into a mural on an outdoor wall at 1240 Valencia Street on Wednesday at 10am.This is part of an on-going community undertaking through the (de)Appropriation Project. Please stop by and say hello if you’re in the area!

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Also….

When I first approached Malik and asked if I could take his picture, he declined, but eventually said, “OK, but only one.”  I posed him against the building’s corner column so he was in context of the street. Initially not being all that friendly he was determined to give me the attitude you see on the left. In many ways I think it is a more powerful image.

I ended up talking with him for probably close to half an hour. Over that time he loosened up a ton and became very engaging and was full of character. I ended taking a lot of photos. One of the messages of the workshop is SLOW DOWN, linger, and spend more time with your subjects – rather than snap and run after taking one photo. The result in this encounter was coming away with the image above, which in my opinion, is much more representative of who Malik really is – a very engaging, funny, and soft-spoken person.